Google Doesn’t Use Authorship for Rankings – But You Should Still Use It

When you search for just about anything in Google, you’re bound to see a few smiling faces pop up beside your search engine results. These faces are part of the Google Authorship system. Google Authorship links the Google+ profiles of authors with the websites on which they’re publishing.

Google Authorship helps websites appear more legitimate in search engine rankings. It’s also been shown to increase click through rates. However, according to a recent interview with a Google analyst, there’s one thing Authorship doesn’t do: affect search engine rankings.

That’s right: despite the push for Authorship from just about every SEO on the planet, Google doesn’t actually use Authorship for search engine rankings. That information was revealed during a recent Google Hangout with Google web trends analyst John Mueller.

Here’s how the question and answer session went down:

Q: Why can’t Google+ Authorship prevent scraper sites from showing up above us in the search results?

A: Well, we don’t use Authorship for ranking, so it’s not…because it’s written by a well-known author, or it looks like it might have been written by a well-known author, that we’d show it higher up in the search results…We don’t use it for ranking, at the moment.

Scraper sites involve collecting relevant content from across the web to form a mish-mash of low quality content. Understandably, it’s frustrating for web developers when low-quality scraper content outranks well-crafted content created by a real writer. In response, Mueller says:

“If you’re seeing a situation where scraper sites are showing up above you, that’s something that I would treat separately from any authorship markup that we have on your pages.”

Why Google Authorship is still important

The revelation that Authorship doesn’t affect search results isn’t totally surprising. Matt Cutts, Google’s head of search spam, recently revealed in a video that Authorship helps to improve search quality, but it doesn’t improve search engine rankings.

However, there are still a number of reasons why Google Authorship is very important. Here’s why you still need to care about it if you want to improve search engine rankings for your company or your clients:

It improves click through rate: Numerous studies have shown that Google Authorship improves the click through rate (CTR) of your content. The higher your CTR is, the more likely people are to click on your content from the search engine results page. People are more likely to click on a search engine listing with a smiling face of a real human being than a search engine listing with a blank white space beside it.

It gives your brand a face: Today, many companies have put their experienced employees to work writing content. This content is posted on the company’s blog and is designed to add practical knowledge to the industry online. It allows employees to share unique industry knowledge that they’ve learned over their years of experience. When you integrate Authorship into these blog posts, it can also match your company’s name with a face (or the faces) of employees.

Google not “currently” using it, but may in the future: Google has said that they’re not currently using Authorship to influence rankings. However, Google did not say that they will never use Authorship to influence rankings. At some point in the future, it seems likely that Google will take Authorship into account, and at that point, the people who implement Authorship today will likely be ahead of their competition.

Renew Marketing can help with all your Google Authorship and internet marketing Dallas needs. To receive a free consultation today, call us now at 800-385-7010 or schedule a no obligation consultation online.